Nick Saban on the BCS: "When we look back at it. We're going to see that it probably wasn't all that bad."

You would think, at the very least, the guy who has benefited most from this confounding contraption could at least blow a little sunshine in the final, fateful hours.

"When we look back at it," says Alabama coach Nick Saban, "we're going to see that it probably wasn't all that bad."

There you have it, everyone. Even on its farewell tour, the BCS can't get a break.

For 15 years we’ve complained. For 15 years it hasn’t been good enough. For 15 years the blasted thing never gave us what we needed, and always left us wanting more.

Meanwhile, Ohio State beat Miami in double overtime. Auburn won on the last play of the game. Vince Young gave us the single greatest performance in the history of the sport.

And Nick Saban got not one, not two, but three gifts from the series ranking system no one understands -- and just about everyone despises. It's almost fitting, really: The one coach who has dominated the sport over the last decade is the defining example of all that is so imperfectly perfect with the system. Who really knows if Saban's teams in 2003, 2011 and 2012 should have played for it all?

All he knows, and all he cares about, is his team seized opportunity and played its best game of the season.

In 2009, Saban didn't have to worry about polls or rankings or systems after the Tide went undefeated. But in 2003, his one-loss LSU team was chosen ahead of one-loss USC, then played Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl and suffocated the Sooners. In 2011, Saban's one-loss Alabama team was chosen over one-loss Oklahoma State and responded by shutting out unbeaten LSU. Last year, the one-loss Tide were chosen ahead of one-loss Oregon and humiliated unbeaten Notre Dame.

Three games, three chances, three resounding championship responses.

The best part of those three BCS gifts: All three of Saban's teams lost at home during the season -- and still were awarded a spot in the championship game. And there's the rub.

No one has -- and no one ever will -- understood the inner workings of the series formula. Even those within the BCS walls don't dare speak of it.

"All that matters is we were voted in," says Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron.

There's the entry point for every critic, every cynic, every mouth with a soapbox to proclaim -- beyond the shadow of a doubt -- that the BCS is evil. The BCS made the rich fat and happy and left the poor begging for scraps.

The BCS ruined the postseason by clearly establishing one elite game and therefore diluting the rest. The BCS left schools scrambling to sell tickets. The BCS motivated one bowl director to abuse his power, and it was the impetus for conference realignment and the changing landscape of college sports.

And on and on and on.

Yet there's one teeny-weeny problem: facts. Lost amid this nonsensical BCS Boogeyman narrative is the reality that the BCS is only what the voters make of it. And the new college football postseason beginning in 2014-2015 will only be what the new selection committee makes of it.

The poll voters and makers -- the coaches poll, the Harris Poll and the computer polls—set the parameters of the controversial system. You want to blame someone for the little guy getting shut out? Blame the voter in Waterloo, Iowa.

Want to blame someone for Alabama getting back-to-back mulligans? Blame your coaches or those computer geeks who do their best to convince you they have this magical "formula" -- when all they really have is another opinion poll.

Look, college football has never been bigger. The popularity of the game has exploded in the 15 years under the BCS.

The BCS didn’t minimize other bowls -- it grew the bowl tree. In 1997, the year before the BCS began, there were 20 bowl games. Last year, there were 35.

In 1997, the major bowls paid out an average of almost $9 million per team (not factoring in how the money gets split up among conference members). Last year, the average was almost $17 million -- and included a payout to non-BCS Northern Illinois, which never would have had a chance to play in the Orange Bowl in the old system.

How in the world can the BCS be seen as anything but wildly successful?

"Because that would make too much sense," quips Texas coach Mack Brown.

Yep, probably wasn't that bad after all.

-- Matt Hayes, Sporting News | This article originally appeared on SportingNews.com